In many consumer packaging applications, it is important to prevent air or water or the like from passing out of or into a package containing certain food products. This is particularly true with respect to cheese packages, meat packages, and the like, for which the contained product must be kept in a constant environment to prevent spoilage. In order to preserve the product contained within such a package, the periphery of the package must be hermetically sealed.
It is also desirable to provide a convenient and effective way to reseal the package after it has been opened. In this respect, recloseable zipper seals are advantageous. On the other hand, recloseable seals alone provide an opportunity for undesired tampering with the contents of a package. To reduce the opportunity for undetected tampering, packages with recloseable zippers can be permanently sealed above or below the recloseable zipper in such in manner that the opening of the package becomes apparent.
However, seals which inhibit tampering may be difficult for the consumer to open. Such seals may require the consumer to break the seals by cutting them with a scissors or knife. To overcome this problem, a tear bead or guide can be combined with a recloseable zipper to provide a package which is easy for the consumer to open and reseal and yet minimizes the opportunities for undetected pre-sale product tampering.
Existing tear guides are often inadequate because they expose the food products within the package to air outside the package, thereby defeating the purpose of the hermetic seals around the periphery of the package. Such exposure to air can degrade the quality of the food products within the package. Furthermore, existing tear guides often fail to cleanly open the package because the tear guide will deviate from a straight path across the mouth end of the package. In some cases, the tear guide will wander off the package prior to traversing the entire mouth end thereof such that the tear guide fails to fully open the package.
A need therefore exists for a tear guide arrangement for a polymeric package which overcomes the aforementioned shortcomings associated with existing tear guides.